Charles Wordsworth

Charles Wordsworth (22 August 1806 - 5 December 1892) was Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane in Scotland. He was a classical scholar, and taught at public schools in England and Scotland. He was a rower, cricketer and athlete and he instigated both the University cricket match in 1826 and the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race in 1829. Wordsworth was born in Lambeth, the son of the Rev. Christopher Wordsworth and a nephew of the poet William Wordsworth. His father was a divine and scholar. He was educated at Harrow where his friends included Charles Merivale and Richard Chenevix Trench. He was in the Harrow cricket eleven for the first regular matches with Eton (1822) and Winchester (1825), He then went to Christ Church, Oxford where he won the Chancellor's Latin verse at Oxford in 1827, and the Latin essay in 1831, and took a first-class in classics. Through his continued contact with Merivale at Cambridge University, he is credited with bringing about the first Oxford and Cambridge match in 1827, in which he captained Oxford and took seven wickets. Again with Merivale and his Cambridge contacts he instigated the first university boat race in 1829. He played cricket in the Varsity match in 1829 and rowed in the winning Oxford crew in the Boat Race. In 1869 Wordsworth responded to John Morgan, who was investigating the health effects of rowing.